Vertex

Howdy, Game Maker Community! I'm excited to tell you that at last I've produced the final public demo of Vertex, which has been in development for years! Vertex is an action exploration platformer in which the player explores the province of Halcyon to fight against the unknown force behind the attack on the Vertex. This demo includes the following, and more:

an average of 2 to 3 hours of gameplay

a working inventory and shop

original sound, music, and graphics

5 major areas, plus multiple minor areas and secret areas

Numerous boss battles

This game has inspiration from Nintendo's Super Metroid, Derek Yu's Spelunky, Pixel's Cave Story, and a lot more games mentioned in the credits.

Yeah, I have a tendency to make my games a little too hard I wanted him to be challenging, but if he's too hard I can alter him (for instance take out the mushrooms, if that would make it better). Were you able to get past him?

I suggest keeping the boss as it is. It's fine.
The graphics, gameplay AND level design all remind me of Cave Story. I suppose that's a good thing.
I think I did everything possible in the demo. I got 30 of those blue things and I upgraded my health to 13.

Very nice game; excellent graphics, good level design from what I saw. The boss is a little difficult, only because of the mushrooms though. They're a little hard to see and I tend to die walking right into them before I even know they're there.

I'd like to watch this progress, it's a very nice game so far.

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Wraxul Gaming SiteIf I've given you feedback on your game, please give one of mine a try and return the favor! Thanks in advance!

I suggest keeping the boss as it is. It's fine.The graphics, gameplay AND level design all remind me of Cave Story. I suppose that's a good thing. I think I did everything possible in the demo. I got 30 of those blue things and I upgraded my health to 13.

You're pretty darn close to having everything. The only thing you're missing is that your max HP in this demo can go up to 17, and there are two golden things (don't have a name yet ). But you have maxed out on the blue ones. Thanks for giving it such a thorough play through!

I played until I beat the first boss and I was already very impressed with everything! The only thing I suggest is to fix some of the sound effects with the dialouge. They sound a bit annoying at times.

I played until I beat the first boss and I was already very impressed with everything! The only thing I suggest is to fix some of the sound effects with the dialouge. They sound a bit annoying at times.

Really? I like them. How would you suggest I change them? Like, do you think I should take them out completely?

Thank you all for the comments!

Awesome game, I wonder if we'll see it in the Staff Choice or that new thing they got going there.

That would be completely awesome, if I do say so myself. At least, for me it would

There's a slight glitch when you find the 2nd chracter just before the first boss fight. On the last page of dialogue with her it replays the noise to say you've "picked her up" over and over until the textbox goes.

There's a slight glitch when you find the 2nd chracter just before the first boss fight. On the last page of dialogue with her it replays the noise to say you've "picked her up" over and over until the textbox goes.

Right, I forgot about that. I shall get right on that. Thanks for reminding me

Game froze up at first boss for some reason, fun game and good graphics all the way there though.

Yeah, there are a couple glitches with Gunnar's opening cutscene. I think I'll just reprogram that cutscene for the next demo.

This game is beautiful and pretty solid. My only gripe is that the camera lags behind the player rather than the far preferably options of being locked dead-center or looking a bit ahead. I hope I don't have to explain why seeing more stuff behind me than in front of me is a complete waste of screen-estate.

Also, it would be nice if the punch made some sort of sound.

Also, I get error reading real when loading game.

Other than that, the game's pretty much perfect so far.

-I've got to say that the Frog-Dragon looks considerably more like a Penguin-Dragon.

-How does one load game without dying? It seems inconvenient to go kill myself at the spikes each time I boot the game up.

-Oh motherf- I died on the second boss because I accidentally hit up on the door (while airborne, no less!), so I couldn't control my character while he was reassuring me that the door was, in fact, locked. Then I got lasered in the face. The extra salt in the wound is the fact that I had the boss down on his last hitpoint.

This game is beautiful and pretty solid. My only gripe is that the camera lags behind the player rather than the far preferably options of being locked dead-center or looking a bit ahead. I hope I don't have to explain why seeing more stuff behind me than in front of me is a complete waste of screen-estate.

This is a good point, and I've thought about it before. Basically I was just going for smooth view movement, and this seemed to work. Personally I like the way it looks, but you do make a good point of it being a little inconvenient.

Also, it would be nice if the punch made some sort of sound.

Of course. I'm still working on the sounds, there's plenty more to come.

Also, I get error reading real when loading game.

I've heard of this error before, but I've never gotten it myself. I don't know why it happens. What is the whole error message?

I've got to say that the Frog-Dragon looks considerably more like a Penguin-Dragon.

Well, yeah, he's in the Garden and he's shiny and green. His actual sprite is nothing like what I had sketched out on paper for him, anyway

How does one load game without dying? It seems inconvenient to go kill myself at the spikes each time I boot the game up.

Did I not put that in the opening post? I guess not. I thought I did...

Press 'Q'. It's the temporary button for loading. Don't do it while paused or you will get a constant error.

Oh motherf- I died on the second boss because I accidentally hit up on the door (while airborne, no less!), so I couldn't control my character while he was reassuring me that the door was, in fact, locked. Then I got lasered in the face. The extra salt in the wound is the fact that I had the boss down on his last hitpoint.

That's something I've not gotten around to fixing yet, but it's definitely going to be fixed. I totally agree, it's quite unnecessary.

Oh well, not like he was particularly difficult.

To some people, he is. He used to be harder, with more health and more lasers. The difficulty is being ramped up significantly in the Master Tower- not too much, mind you, but it should be a challenge.

Thank you for such detailed feedback. Such comments are always welcome!

The event is, of course, different if you load by dying instead of pressing Q but the error message is generally the same. I advice using real() or something. Worth nothing that despite the error everything loads completely fine.

Also worth noting is that I get the error twenty times in a row.

As for the camera, consider that you can have you smooth movement, but instead of following the character smoothly, have it smoothly follow a point in front of them.

-Even after aquiring the map I'm not seeing anything on the map menu. Is this simply because you haven't actually made it yet?

The event is, of course, different if you load by dying instead of pressing Q but the error message is generally the same. I advice using real() or something. Worth nothing that despite the error everything loads completely fine.

That's interesting. I have no idea what's causing it, and it never happens to me. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by using real(). It's looking at an external file containing nothing but numbers with file_text_read_real(specified filename). I also have no idea why it wouldn't cause any problems if it had an error reading the file.

Also worth noting is that I get the error twenty times in a row.

Again, interesting. Literally twenty? Or is that meant as a hyperbole? Because if you literally counted twenty errors, that doesn't make any sense to me because there are far more than twenty values for it to read.

As for the camera, consider that you can have you smooth movement, but instead of following the character smoothly, have it smoothly follow a point in front of them.

I'll look into that. Thank you!

-Even after aquiring the map I'm not seeing anything on the map menu. Is this simply because you haven't actually made it yet?

Correct. In fact, that's exactly what I've been working on the past couple of days. You can pretty much expect it in the next demo, if you play it. It's going pretty nicely.

That's interesting. I have no idea what's causing it, and it never happens to me. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by using real(). It's looking at an external file containing nothing but numbers with file_text_read_real(specified filename). I also have no idea why it wouldn't cause any problems if it had an error reading the file.

What I mean is that you'd write

variable = real(file_text_read_string(filename));

which somehow doesn't give an error.

Anyways, after opening the savefile with notepad I think I can see what the problem is:It would appear there is a space in front of each number. also, each number is saved at as much as four decimal's places which seems kinda redundant. I've had this problem with stuff I've made myself and never quite figured out why it would do as it did. In the end I started saving and loading the values as strings, then converting them.

Again, interesting. Literally twenty? Or is that meant as a hyperbole? Because if you literally counted twenty errors, that doesn't make any sense to me because there are far more than twenty values for it to read.

Actual amount when I bothered to count seemed to be thirty-two. Some hyperbole, eh?

That's interesting. I have no idea what's causing it, and it never happens to me. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by using real(). It's looking at an external file containing nothing but numbers with file_text_read_real(specified filename). I also have no idea why it wouldn't cause any problems if it had an error reading the file.

What I mean is that you'd write

variable = real(file_text_read_string(filename));

which somehow doesn't give an error.

Anyways, after opening the savefile with notepad I think I can see what the problem is:It would appear there is a space in front of each number. also, each number is saved at as much as four decimal's places which seems kinda redundant. I've had this problem with stuff I've made myself and never quite figured out why it would do as it did. In the end I started saving and loading the values as strings, then converting them.

Again, interesting. Literally twenty? Or is that meant as a hyperbole? Because if you literally counted twenty errors, that doesn't make any sense to me because there are far more than twenty values for it to read.

Actual amount when I bothered to count seemed to be thirty-two. Some hyperbole, eh?

Ah, thank you. 32 makes more sense I included real() and nothing seemed to go wrong from it, so that's good. However, since I never get that error message myself, I can't really tell if it fixed the problem or not. So we'll just wait and see when the next demo comes out, if anyone else has that problem which hopefully will be pretty soon.

It's really awesome and reminds of Cave Story(love it *-*), aswell!!Though there's no BGM in yet it's quite a nice atmosphere and everything.

If you read this:

Go work on the game q_q

Still working on the BGM. Although it's going rather slowly, and to be honest I'm pretty sure it'll be a long time 'til it's put into a demo. And I can't avoid admitting that that this game gets huge inspiration out of Cave Story in many places, but I'm trying my hardest to make it not look like a clone

this is a really good game... o.odo you have a team working with you or is this a personal project?

Well, technically I have support, with family and friends giving plenty of input, and lasttea999 has helped especially with the programming (namely the motion engine that got the whole project going, as well as a number of small things), but otherwise, it's primarily my project.

i tend to suck every rare once in a while, but I can't seem to get out of the passage to the first boss. i can't jump high enough, even with the girl
i would love to play farther if i could get outta this cave thing

EDIT: oh nvm, found it

EDIT: the game was fun, but i got to the point in the grass/water area that i didn't know where i was going, and there were no enemies so there was no incentive to continue. i think i ended on 28 or something tho. good game so far. but a map would be nice

i tend to suck every rare once in a while, but I can't seem to get out of the passage to the first boss. i can't jump high enough, even with the girl i would love to play farther if i could get outta this cave thing

EDIT: oh nvm, found it

EDIT: the game was fun, but i got to the point in the grass/water area that i didn't know where i was going, and there were no enemies so there was no incentive to continue. i think i ended on 28 or something tho. good game so far. but a map would be nice

Looks like you found the WIP lake I'm still adding enemies to that area. There's an underwater cave that has a couple rooms. You did get to the mine and the tower, though, right? :/

Wow, great! Much better than the Platformer I'm working on! Although, mine isn't as finished as yours. I loved the pixel art! Wish I could be as good as you, but I'm getting better! would have liked to have seen animation when entering doors though. It was great otherwise!

Wow, great! Much better than the Platformer I'm working on! Although, mine isn't as finished as yours. I loved the pixel art! Wish I could be as good as you, but I'm getting better! would have liked to have seen animation when entering doors though. It was great otherwise!

Thank you! I agree on the entering doors animation, but that's pretty low on the priority list. Good luck with your game!

Great work! Can't wait to see this finished. The influence from Spelunky is particularly noticeable.

Glad to know someone's able to notice that this isn't a direct Cavestory clone

I've heard of this error before, but I've never gotten it myself. I don't know why it happens. What is the whole error message?

I know what's causing this! I know what's causing this!

The main problem is that when saving numbers to a file, and they get decimal places (which nearly always happen), some computers save the numbers with a decimal dot, and others with a decimal comma.

Game Maker, being american standardish, will think of a number with a decimal comma as invalid data; it accepts only the decimal dot as a decimal operator. But the file_write_real function would use the native interpunctation of the computer, which for european computers would be a comma...

To make sure this thing never happens, you gotta use

file_text_write_string(fileindex,string(value))

This will also strip the number of any roundoff err decimals, so that it will appear as an integer (if you're into how a real is stored, you know why those extra decimals appear) which is actually is (even though it may be slightly off due to the way a real is stored, namely as something like "3.456872345623*2^5, equals ALMOST 14 and is treated as 14 by Game Maker").

Ah, anyway, convert the values to strings - that will make the decimal dot become a dot and nothing else. To be really, really sure no error occurs on loading the data, just use this code to load data:

data = real(file_text_read_string(fileindex))

That will take care about reading that decimal dot no matter what language zone your player is in.

Your game looks lovely, I'll check it out when I get time.

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- The above is my personal opinion and in no way representative of Yoyogames or the GMC, except when explicitly stated -

Wow, thank you so much. I don't think I'd ever have figured that on my own. Now, I can't tell on my own computer if it fixes the problem yet or not, but it doesn't cause any problems either. Which is a good sign. I guess we'll find out when I release another demo.

@yalmicNo, it's not yet halfway finished. Truth be told, I'd lost my motivation for several months. However, the game is back on track now. It's your choice whether you wait for the final or play the demo, but the demo probably won't ruin the experience for you if you do play it, and I appreciate all the feedback I can get in the earlier stages anyways.

BENJAMUS, are you interested in having the party character flawlessly follow the lead character around (rather than having the lead character transforming) and jump between platforms and stuff and never get stuck? I've recently found a method for this which I could give you the code for... if you want it. I don't have enough time to fully explain it right now.

= EDIT =OK, now I've got time.Here's how I thought: The problem with an ally following you around is to make sure it won't lose you by falling down somewhere and not getting up again. If enemies does that it's neglible, since after all the player's glad when enemies - that are a sort of obstacle - sorta gets rid of themselves. It's something completely different with having your healer falling down twenty storeys since she didn't jump properly... Sonic games solved this problem by having Miles Prower being able to fly, and every time he got lost he would appear flying (and being able to fly trough walls) and land himself on the very piece of ground Sonic stood at. (In the more recent games, such as Shadow The Hedgehog, the ally just respawn near you. That looks ugly, especially on moving platforms where the ally instantly falls down again)

The idea I got was... The player character can only be at "accessible" places. The player won't ever be halfway into a wall. The player will only pass trough OK places. The player's ally should be just fine if (s)he took the same path as the player...So what if the player saved this path somehow? Let's look into expanding xprevious/yprevious into something even better... the Previous Array.

In the create event of the player we put something that defines this array:

You may of course want to have some code there to animate the ally to e.g. have jump animation whilst in mid-air and so on, but you'll figure out how to do that with the method you're using, I'm sure.

=EDIT END=

Anyway, some feedback:The game needs a title screen of sorts. So that there's an easy method of loading a saved game on bootup.As well, the game needs some music - it's not as immersive as it would've been with some sort of BGM (which deducts from gameplay). You could use more or less anything as placeholders (On To Grasstown? Emerald Hill Zone Theme? Kid Icarus Fortress Theme?) as long as you have a disclaimer screen shown at startup (before the title screen) with some text "Currently I use the music X, Y and W2. Those are just placeholders until I compose my own music (and that process is nearly halfway done!). Please don't be offended because of this.". It really would make the game feel even more fun to play (and make navigating the Gardens feel more like <exploration> than <being lost in a giant area where everything look the same desperately trying to get back to the Town>)And finally, after getting out from the boss room I went lost. It would be nice to have the map system work properly, so that you get an impression wether you're going in the right direction or not. It was kinda annoying to wander around a silent garden with no real idea where you're supposed to go.

I'm swedish so I put more emphasis on negative items that need to be improved than on the positive ones that are polished enough... I hope I don't discourage you. The gameplay itself is pretty solid, with a single gripe of mine: when being hit by an enemy, it would be kinda nice if the character had some more visual damage-taking effect. Namely, they should be knocked back (set xspeed to negative image_xscale something, set vspeed to some value like -3, perhaps have some red circles fly out, and have a sound effect that sounds like they say "Ouch" in a 8-bit fashion. For reference: Castlevania 1 when Simon gets damaged) by the enemies. Sure, this may make you having to pull of a certain jump again, but meh.

Oh, and while on the subject of enemies... There's a cave in the gardens where you enter from the right-hand side of the cave, then go to the leftmost area, climb a wall, and jump to the righthand area to get a heart extension. One of the mushroom enemies are placed on a platform (on the left wall, right before you jump to the mid-air platforms you need to cross to reach the right-hand area) you need to step on to make the jump, and the only way to get rid of it is to jump into it and kill it whilst invincible (or time double-jump and shooting nigh perfectly). Fix that, it's a little piece of very annoying level design. I'd recommend you to make the platform one block longer so that it's possible to shoot the enemy without being inside it; and perhaps make the mid-air platform a bit shorter on the left side to compensate.

Edited by Yal, 08 December 2010 - 04:26 PM.

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- The above is my personal opinion and in no way representative of Yoyogames or the GMC, except when explicitly stated -

Thank you for your detailed replies, Yal. As for the party character following the lead character, I don't think this is entirely necessary, although it would be a cool effect (and would admittedly make a lot more sense than the current transforming between characters). I haven't looked deeply into the code you provided, and my understanding of arrays isn't exactly superb (I understand them, but I'm just not used to them yet), but would the method you suggested also account for moving platforms? That is, if the lead character made the jump to a moving platform, but the party character missed it slightly due to difference in timing, what would happen to the party character?

Now, to address your feedback:

Regarding the title screen, I completely agree. I started on that once, but ran into some weird bug that I wasn't feeling up to fixing at that moment, and never got back around to it. I have a title screen image drawn up and everything already.Regarding the music, I think I'd have to agree with you. If I can find good placeholder music, then I might as well add it to the next demo (giving credit where credit is due, of course).Regarding the map system, I've been having some issues deciding exactly how I want it to work. I'm thinking of redesigning some of the Garden and some other areas to make them more navigable and memorable (which hopefully will result in less people getting lost).Regarding the knockback when taking damage: I think this is a great idea. It most likely wouldn't be hard to program at all, just some small changes that need to be made in my coding. Currently, the player does turn red for a small time when hit, and there is a sound for getting hit.Lastly, regarding that one enemy you pointed out: is the area you were talking about purple colored? I think I know what you're talking about, and I've always found that one a little annoying myself, I just never got around to fixing it. There are a couple other parts like that that come to mind for me that I should go fix. I've just moved that enemy to a different location where he is easier to hit without taking damage.

Thank you so much for your feedback!

@yalmic: Chances are, save files from older demos will produce errors if used in newer demos.

I haven't looked deeply into the code you provided, and my understanding of arrays isn't exactly superb (I understand them, but I'm just not used to them yet), but would the method you suggested also account for moving platforms? That is, if the lead character made the jump to a moving platform, but the party character missed it slightly due to difference in timing, what would happen to the party character?

As for the code, there's a little errata in it... Get to this topic and get the fixed code from there... Sorry about that, I was typing the code from my heart and missed a little important line...

The code will simply remember the last 20 positions the player's been at, and move the ally to the 20th position of those. So it's kinda like the xprevious variable but with a longer memory. It should work fine with moving platforms as well, as long as they don't move too fast, but there's fixes for that as well (for instance, add the value of the platform's speed upwards/sideways to all array entries using a loop like this):

...that'd simply shift the entire memorized path along the vector the platform will move, and thus the ally will follow you flawlessly.

In fact, Benjamus, it was the image in your sig that made me invent this code system (I thought that the characters followed each other in Vertex before I played it, I got jealous, and worked with getting a good method for getting that to work in my game. And when I found out... well, I'm a nice person so I wanted to show you it.)

Oh, as for music... If you can stand MIDI files, I could send you an assortment of things I've composed with a bunch of ripped music as well. You may only use the music composed by me in Vertex and not in any other project whatsoever, unless you have my written permission. Just so that you know the drill . I'll PM you a download link on wednesday. If you're not interested, say "no" before it's too late.

Edited by Yal, 13 December 2010 - 01:59 PM.

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- The above is my personal opinion and in no way representative of Yoyogames or the GMC, except when explicitly stated -

Oh, as for music... If you can stand MIDI files, I could send you an assortment of things I've composed with a bunch of ripped music as well. You may only use the music composed by me in Vertex and not in any other project whatsoever, unless you have my written permission. Just so that you know the drill . I'll PM you a download link on wednesday. If you're not interested, say "no" before it's too late.

Feel free to send anything you want me to have access to, and I may or may not include it in the demos. In the final product, however, I intend to have the music be of my own composition.

Can you darken the gfx, they are super bright. Also the background needs some work as well.

Could you be a little more specific? I have no way of knowing what graphics and background you're referring to.

Hey, all! It's been a long time; progress has been slow, as my second semester in school this year was much tougher than my first. However, I'd like to announce that I'm getting relatively close to releasing a new demo. In the meantime, I've just finished making a little teaser video that includes clips from all over the game (including lots of new areas) and some of the music I've made thus far! Enjoy:

Well, my "plan" is to work on it when I have the time and the juice, and make whatever progress I can where I can, while I can. Seeing as I have all the graphics, programming, and music to do myself, I always have some aspect of the game I can work on. One of the benefits of working non-commercially. To put it simply, I plan to just cruise along as I have been, and I don't have any final release dates in mind at all. Relatively soon I'll be releasing a new demo - which I plan to be the last demo until the final release. After that I will open a DevLog for Vertex on the TIGSource Forums, in which I will more frequently post small things like screenshots and tidbits of music.

So! It's been a long while since any updates for Vertex have been posted, so I'd like to let you all know now that another huge update is getting much closer! So stay tuned, the third public demo is coming soon.

In the mean time, here are a few screen shots of newly updated areas (please note that there are also quite a lot of new areas coming in the next demo) :

And lastly, I drew some concept art of Lira using Inkscape (her in-game idle sprite is shown in the bottom right corner for reference) :